OCT 03
if they weren't bad enough already . . .
The use of animals on the battlefield is as old as the hills, and in recent centuries has included valiant efforts by unlucky dogs, dolphins, and whales. Recently the military has also been training bees, and would you believe, moths ?
But now boffins at the Sandia Labs in the US have a shiny new weapon for use
in the ‘war own terrrer’ – cockroaches. The idea,
which is undergoing r&d trials at present, is to send the roaches into
battle-zones which are ‘too hostile for humans’ (i.e. soldiers).
The insects have bio-sensors attached to their backs which can detect any
number of different agents. According to a spokesman, the sensor comprises
genetically engineered yeast which fluoresces when remotely zapped by ‘ an
optical radar ‘ ( I may be wrong, but I don’t think there’s
any such thing as an ‘optical radar’ - maybe they mean a torch
)
One thing’s for sure, cockroaches are, in my view, expendable, and they’re
also very cheap. There’s a problem though - I don’t know about
you, but I wouldn’t necessarily trust a cockroach ? I hope they have
had to undergo a loyalty test.
In the meantime, if you are the kind of person inclined to engage in nefarious
anti-freedum activities anywhere in the world, and you see a fluorescent
roach scuttling across your premises, you’ll know you’ve been
bugged.
no smoking
It looks like Ireland will shortly become the first EU country to ban smoking in the workplace. The law is scheduled to come into force on 1st Jan 2004, so presumably there will be an awful lot of huffing and puffing going on come New Year’s Eve. The Irish love a gamble, and Irish bookmakers are still taking bets that the law will be defeated. ( the odds are 10/1 against )
The ban will be country-wide and includes all ‘workplaces’. That
means, of course, offices and factories, but also pubs, bars, clubs , hotels
etc etc. Its effect will be that it won’t be possible to go out for a
drink and a smoke ( unless you stand outside ). It remains to be seen how well
the ban will be enforced, especially in remote rural areas, where a drinking
and smoking go together like chips and vinegar. ( Needless to say, the pubs
and bars just on the north side of the Irish border can’t wait for the
ban to begin.)
If you are a committed cigarette-butt-head, there is however a solution. Literally
a solution. Anyone who craves a nicotine hit, but is prevented by law from
smoking, could take a leaf from the history of the Aguaruna aboriginals of
Peru, who, several centuries B.C., perfected the use of the tobacco enema
. . . So perhaps the bars in Ireland will have two popular black liquids
on sale as from Jan 1st. ( ‘yes sir, would you like it room temperature
or chilled ? )
Norway is introducing a similar ban next spring, and there are rumours that
an EU-wide ban is on the drawing board. But if you happen to be a UK barworker,
don’t hold your breath.
comment: The law went through. All went well. Great sucess. The sales of 'Hot Mushrooms' ( patty'o'heaters ) has gone through the roof, as smokers now have to sit outside in all weathers . . . ahhhh !
Mmmmm. Golden Rice.
It’s really cute ‘cos it’s kinda like yellow ? and like has vitamins and stuff ? Because I know it’s good for me, I’m willing to pay another 30cents per pound for it professor . . . ‘
Prof. Lusk is professor of agricultural economics at Purdue university, and
he has clearly shown that consumers are willing to pay more for GM rice .
. . if they are told it’s good for them. Oh yeah? Perhaps the prof.
could do the same study in the UK or Germany ?
The particular rice in question has had a daffodil gene inserted. The daffodil
gene codes for the production of beta-carotene, which, to a certain extent,
can be converted by the body into vitamin A. The rice, which reportedly has
cost $100M to produce ( much of the cash from public funds ) is not on sale
yet, but has been trialed in the Phillipines.
The company which owns the rights to exploit the ‘invention’ in the developed world, Syngenta, will no doubt be very happy to hear that the prof. has found that (american) consumers say they are willing not only to eat it, but pay more for it too.
Incidentally, the other aim of his study was to test the efficacy of a marketing
technique called 'cheap talk'. As far as I can make out, the ‘cheap
talk’ idea revolves round the fact that it’s best to let
the participants in the study know that they shouldn’t exaggerate their
answers . . . er . . . well . . . done . . . prof.
Although he does mention that the ‘cheap talk’ strategy ‘had no effect on informed consumers’
Oh r e a l l y ?
If you’d like to find out more about the prof’s work goto
http://news.uns.purdue.edu/UNS/html4ever/
On the other hand, for a taste of the rice try
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/rice.php
Spray-on clothes ?
Not quite yet. But you can buy a can of ‘spray-on stockings’ from
Japan. The stuff is actually based on real silk, ( although you’ll
need a Phd in polymer chemistry to understand what all the other ingredients
are. ) Perhaps I’m out of touch, perhaps everyone uses it already,
perhaps it’s been advertised on a pan-global TV , radio, press campaign
and I hadn’t noticed. But, in truth, what I found the most interesting
wasn’t the idea as such ; it’s the company’s website. Like
their product, it’s a gas. Here’s some choice phrases from the
site . . .
(first some background info)
What are the stockings which do not put on?
It is the foundation garment of beautiful legs based on silk of ultra fine
particle.
Run-proof stockings like air
Spray type stockings by which natural and beautiful legs are produced
It is run-proof, does not get stuffy because of a spray type.
It is a waterproof type, so much strong in the sweat or rain.
It is not sure everyone has effect on allergic reaction. So, please
use it after confirming the elements.
( now to the f.a.q.’s )
Q. Please instruct me how to finish up beautifully.
A. The point is not spraying too thickly for the beautiful finishing. Please spray on the entire leg thinly about 20 centimeters apart from the skins, and extend it well. The air stockings are smoothly extended even spraying little, and cover up pores, uneven skin color, and wounds. If spraying too thick, it caused uneven finishing and much more adheres to your clothes.
Q. I wonder whether adhere to clothes after it dries?
A. The air stockings are foundations for the leg; therefore it is possible to adhere if rubbing it strongly against clothes or according to the weather conditions. Please use it for the part which does not rub against clothes if possible.
O.K , as someone with all the foreign language skills of a mollusc, perhaps I shouldn't be laughing at their efforts. Sorry but I can’t help it. There’s more, much more, at
comment: For some reason, this item continues to get lots of hits . . funny old world isn't it ?
XXC
The MPAA hates pirates ( that’s the Motion Picture Association of America ), and they’re doing something about it. Not in the street markets, not in the dodgy video stores, not on the internet – in the classrooms . . .
Yay ! They have launched the - ‘Xcellent Xtreme Challenge’ (sic. ) which is a special competition / campaign for American schools to convince middle-grade students that media piracy is a *bad* thing. During the campaign, children will – ‘Develop written arguments against illegally downloading materials from the web’ and the will be presented with ‘Starving Artists handouts’
No, honestly, I’m not making this up.
The MPAA is evidently under the impression that, if it can catch-‘em-young,
it can persuade ‘em not to download. The ‘Xcellent Xtreme Challenge’ (sic.
) documentation is also presented to the child’s parents, and contains
warnings such as ‘ As you are probably aware, the Recording Industry
Association of America has had to resort to suing individual file swappers,
and, if found guilty, they – or their parents – may be liable for
thousands of dollars in fines.‘
Oooh! Menacing! can you believe these guys ? Xcellent !
You can examine your lectures at
http://www.ja.org/programs/programs_supplements
Storm warning.
Not a tropical storm. Not a media storm. A Sunstorm.
There is a high chance of an ‘x-class’ ( i.e. big ) solar storm over the next couple of days. One might well ask, so what ? How does that affect us ? Not a great deal apparently, although there may be a very good chance to see some spectacular aurorae , even in mid latitude countries. Luckily for us, the earth’s magnetic field shields life-on-earth from nearly all the extra doses of dangerous short wavelength radiation that the sun splurges out every so often. In space, however, it’s a different story.
The thousands of earth-orbiting and geostationary satellites, which we’ve
come to rely on, get well and truly upset, and sometimes killed, by the plumes
of radiation. Although it’s possible to shield electronics from radiation
to a certain extent ( chip-makers have been making ‘rad-hard’ components
for decades for obvious, sinister reasons ) sometimes the satellites have to
be put into sleep-mode to avoid damage. Since most of the earth’s satellites
are owned and operated by the military of any country that can afford it, the
powers-that-be tend to get a bit twitchy when their multi-million dollar remote
sensors and communication centres have to take a nap. So, for a few hours,
or maybe days, the military-industrial ‘space umbrella’ has a very
large hole in it.
So, when there’s a sunstorm, should we sleep easier, or more fitfully
? Maybe it would be best just to stay up and watch the free aurora show.
not very p.r.
Ever heard of Burson-Marsteller ? They are a huge PR outfit specialising in branding, advertising, and - ‘intangible-assets communication’ ( whatever that is ) . . . They have offices in 50 countries.
If a reliable way of judging of a PR firm is by the compan(ies) it keeps, here’s a list of some of their clients, past and present . .
All the major GM companies including Monsanto.
All the major oil companies.
British(Sellafield)Nuclear Fuels,
Union(Bhopal)Carbide,
Mc(contents may be hot)Donalds,
The Indonesian Government,
The Argentinian Junta,
and Nicolae Ceausescu amongst others . . . . get the picture ?
They’ve been around. They know the score. They get results. They’re v
e r y expensive - and they’ve just been commissioned by the UK government’s Environment
Agency . . .
And what do the Env.Agcy. do exactly ? According to their website they ‘ .
. . make sure industry keeps its impacts on air, land and water quality
to a minimum . . . .’
Sorry, I’m lost now. Why on earth would the Environment Agency want
to divert some large wedges of £taxpayer’s£ in the direction
of BM ? I’ve absolutely no idea. What I do know, is that I smell
some pollution in the air - sort of a big, smelly, ratty kind of odour.
For some reason, the Env.Agcy. aren’t overly keen on publicising
their recent commissioning exercise. Here’s the result of a search on
their website as of today . . .
‘ Your search for Burson Marsteller found 0 results ‘
I have an idea; I’ll e-mail the Env.Agcy and ask them what’s its all about. Watch this space.
Update:
The Env Agcy replied to my e-mail :
"I cannot find anyone under that name (Burson Marsteller) in our staff directory so I cannot help you with this."
Heh! You have to hand it to them , they have a sense of humour !
press freedom ? nice idea . . .
‘Reporters sans frontières’ has just published its ‘press freedom’ league table for 2003. They calculate the ranking using records regarding journalists who have been killed, imprisoned, gagged etc, stories that have been officially buried, false feeds, and general government interference and skullduggery concerning the media - when ‘the news’ isn’t to their liking.
(cue D.J. voiceover)
And this year’s UK rating – down six places, to number
27. Trailing behind Jamaica, Latvia and Trinidad.
The US rating ? – down a massive fifteen places to number 32, below East
Timor, Benin and Greece.
Now for the top of the charts – unmoved at number 2 – Iceland
And this year’s number 1 chart topper for the best record – Finland.
You have a better chance of finding out what’s really going on if you live in Uruguay than in the UK or the US. Be the first to know. Fair and Balanced. Read ‘El Observador de Uruguay’
p.s. how come Finland and Iceland come top of *every* chart ??
The full pitiful chart can be found at . . .
http://www.rsf.fr/article.php3?id_article=8247
‘Computer Implemented Inventions’.
What ? Apparently, this is the current official obfuspseak for ‘software patents’.
The UK patent office has been lobbying hard for the EU to adopt new patent laws which will allow the ‘patenting’ of software. Well they would wouldn’t they ? that’s how they make their money, issuing patents. Today, there is a crucial meeting of experts which will guide the final decision, which is scheduled for Nov. this year.
Although your local Patent Office may try to persuade you otherwise, patents
are about as reliable as, as . . . well, as software. They mainly rely on
two things.
Firstly, luck. The Patent Office may grant you a patent, but, contrary to most
people’s expectations, they give absolutely no guarantee whatever that
the patent is, or is going to remain, valid. If someone shows up with proof
that the invention had actually existed before, your patent, and associated
investments, gets instantly blown out of the water.
Secondly, how much cash have you got ? If a large corporation or mega-rich
individual decides to challenge you in court, they will almost certainly
win unless you’ve got ‘bigger lawyers’ than they have.
Conversely, if a small enterprise in China decides to start manufacturing
your precious product, what are you going to do about it ? Without the help
of a firm of expert patent lawyers with a global reach, you’re lost.
Welcome to the flaky nether-world of patents. Very much like the flaky nether-world
of software. Put the two together and you have something with all the substance
and logic of a dust-devil.
Many people have pointed out that the granting of a patent to a piece of software,
is much like granting a patent to a mathematical formula. If the idea had
been around in ancient Greece, Pythagoras could have made a fortune.
I have a suggestion for the EU mandarins. Offer the giant software-houses a
deal . . . If software patenting is to be allowed, then, at the same time,
the software should be legally bound by all the other commercial laws. Say,
for instance, the ones which insist that products be ‘of merchantable
quality’ and ‘ suitable for the purpose for which they
are sold’ etc etc . That’ll shut them up.
Info on patents http://www.softwarepatents.co.uk
Emmenthal
In 2004 the European Union will admit ten new members, forming a new bloc which will stretch from Portugal in the west to Hungary in the east; Finland in the north to Cyprus in the south. Except that it’s not quite a bloc, more of a doughnut. There’s a hole in the middle.
Ever more obvious as the years go by; Switzerland is not part of the EU.
What is it that they have, or don’t have, which keeps them form merging, ( or being assimilated by ) the EU? Well, they have, chocolate, ( although they can’t grow the main ingredient cocoa ), and, as Orson Welles reminded us, they have cuckoo clocks.
They also have mountains - mountains of cash to be specific. Nowadays, the Swiss banking system may not be the biggest in the world, but, if you multiply the size of the assets, by the amount of secrecy involved … they’re still the governor. Anyone with enough liquid cash can open a Swiss bank account, no ( or at least very few ) questions asked. Until fairly recently, the so-called ‘numbered’ accounts were utterly secret. No-one - tax offices, international security services, even Interpol - had access.
But that has changed - slightly. The Swiss authorities will now consider providing details of accounts to international criminal investigations, if there is sufficient evidence that the money in the account has suspect origins. The vast majority of the cash though, which hasn’t had the harsh light of a criminal investigation shone upon it, remains sleeping. All kinds of money, some squeaky clean, and some filthy dirty. Every country, every corporation, and every person who has a stake in the Swiss machine knows that if it were ever to be investigated from top to bottom, not just skeletons, but entire armies of skeletons would come tumbling out of their numbered closets.
The Swiss hole looks set to remain, because the citizens have just elected
an ultra-right-wing party, the SVP, who believe that the country
should become even less welcoming to ‘foreign’ influences. They
recently ran a poster campaign with the slogan “ "the Swiss
are increasingly becoming Negroes." It brings a new meaning to
the expression ‘Cuckoo Land’.
smokeurs
I’m glad I’m not French. I’m glad I’m not a French smoker. I’m glad I’m not a French smoker without much spare change ( pron. ‘schonge’ ).
Because now, fags, (oh purleese . . . cigarettes to our American readers then ) are n e a r l y as expensive there as they are in the UK. The shocking tax rise has prompted almost all of the country’s Tabac’s to close in protest. What a shame. So, for a couple of days ( they won’t hold out any longer – or the nicotine-heads will trash the place ) you might be able to go to a bar, railway station, or doctor’s waiting room in Paris without some Gauloise-smoking local giving you a month’s dose of passive smoking in ten minutes or so.
Tax on tobacco is a tricky subject. Recently released UK government docs show
that, way back in Ted Heath’s time, those crafty bowler-hatted
types at the ministry had calculated that, because smokers tend to get lung
cancer and emphysemia ( a lot ), they die earlier. Which means that they
don’t draw pensions for so long. Which means that, although they cost
the National Health Service a small fortune whilst being treated, the Government
coffers ( Heh ! ) end up more replete than they would have been.
All in all, they raise a fortune in tax. The only slight problem is that there’s
still no way that non-smokers can avoid being forcefully included in someone
else’s loathsome chemical dependency. But if I were a French smoker,
I suppose I’d be fuming.
I've lost interest
Well I’m going to resist mentioning the Barclays/Ratners comparison. Not because it’s not interesting, but because everyone else has it covered good and proper.
But I would like to mention another little ruse which the banks have for squeezing cash out of their customers. In the trade it’s called ‘shrinking’. And it raises millions by stealth. Here’s the scam.
You open a savings account with your friendly high-street bank. It goes without saying that the account will have a marketing-speak name assigned to it – something like ‘Double platinum super saver’ or some such baloney. Unless you’ve got a mountain of cash, you won’t get a very impressive rate of interest from the bank, but you might get say 3% a year. You entrust your savings – and wait. At the end of the first year you get 3% interest , so far so good. At the end of the second year you get 3% again, so that’s fine. This is when things start going a bit pearshaped.
The banks know that a good proportion of savers will just leave their nest-egg in the bank and more or less forget about it till it’s needed. So they slowly start reducing the interest rate . . . Slowly, slowly, easy does it . . . After a few years the rate will be, for all intents and purposes - zero. A colleague of mine had an account with a UK high-street bank which started with interest at around 4%, by the time he noticed, it was down to 0.1% One tenth of a percent. In other words – a joke ( literally, at his expense ).
OK, it’s not a criminal offence to reduce interest payments by stealth.
So what should we call it ? Deviously profiteering? Underhand scamming? Of
course, once you know about it, it’s very easy to get round. For the
scam to work, the banks need to keep inventing new saving schemes every few
months. So you just have to keep changing from your ‘Double platinum
super saver’ to the new ‘Millenium credit’ and
then the ‘Matt Barett super plus’ etc etc. Don’t
let ‘em shrink you !
fat wad
So, Mr. Bush has got his $87Billion. I’ve never been overly hot with maths, let alone economics, but it seems to me that that is one **** of a lot of money. It’s real money. Hard cash that’s going to get spent on real stuff. Perhaps the numbers are just so huge that people can’t comprehend them. Like infinity - not much point thinking about it. But it still strikes me as extremely odd that there isn’t the mother of all objections coming from the taxpayers who are ultimately going to have to foot this bill. Have I missed something? Where else is the money going to come from ? Here’s a quick back-of-an-envelope guesstimation . . .
Let’s assume that around 40% of the population are taxpayers. ( the other
60% will be children, retired people, low-waged, not-employed, unemployed,
infirm etc etc ) The current population of the US is around 300 million. So,
one way or another, 120 million will have to contribute towards the bill. That
means every single person owes $725 ish.
But, of course, the government doesn’t actually have the cash at the
moment. They’re going to have to borrow it. Assuming they will have to
pay interest of around 5% ( which, by the by, means a $4.3Billion profit for
the lenders - whoever they are ), that brings each individual’s total
up to $760. . .
That’s 760 McDonalds double cheeseburgers . . .
That’s 12,000 miles worth of gasoline . . .
And the total, $87Billion, is enough to build 30 superb new hospitals in every
single one of the fifty states . . .
Helloooo? Why isn’t everyone going completely mental? I’ve obviously
made a fundamental error somewhere. Could somebody please enlighten me ?
Have you been assimilated?
In other words, do you spend most of your working time at a computer screen? In the ‘developed-world, there aren’t many jobs left nowadays where you don’t need to be teched-up for several hours a day. Most people aren’t overly happy with the situation, but some claim they enjoy it. Really? I mean *really* enjoy it?
Here’s the acid test. Have you ever found yourself working away at your terminal – and whistling at the same time ? . . .
A quick look at a few jobs where the chances of whistling a happy tune is fairly high . . . Taxi driver, supermarket shelf stacker, gardener, ship’s captain, drummer, university lecturer, tax inspector etc etc. Ever found yourself whistling as you wrangle data into a spreadsheet?
I rest my case.
outsourcing
The UN has approved a resolution which paves the way for lots of other ‘little countries’ to send troops to Iraq for peacekeeping and re-structuring duties. Phrases like ‘sharing the burden of responsibility’ keep cropping up.
There is, however, another consideration – they’re cheaper.
The financial rationale is exactly the same as used by giant transnational corporations who are nowadays so keen to place their manufacturing facilities in ‘developing’ countries. ( the temperature in Baghdad today was 36C, so that gives a new nuance to the word ‘sweatshop’ ) I have absolutely no idea what the average, stationed-abroad, GI-Joe costs to run, but one thing’s for sure, it will be an order of magnitude greater than one from the so-called ’third world’.
I wonder if there will be any soldiers arriving from Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Nicaragua, Grenada, El Salvador, Columbia, Lebanon, Somalia, Philippines . . . or perhaps the seldom heard-of enclave of Ironia ?
Kens cameras
Pioneering is a word that’s often been used to describe ‘Transport for London’s’ scheme to cut traffic congestion in the centre of the city. Probably not that good a choice of word, because, of course, several other megacities have similar schemes where drivers have to pay a fee to enter the central city zone. Singapore, for example has had one since the 1970’s. What was new, however, was the electronic means which were decided upon to check the vehicles coming into London’s West End.
Ken Livingston, London’s mayor, plumped for an optical character recognition system rather than the more tried and tested tollgate system. He was convinced ( in the sense of ‘convinced by’ consultants . . . ) that arrays of computer-assisted video cameras set up at strategic entry points all around the zone, would be able to ‘read’ the vehicles number plates.
Hmmmm. If there are any electronics engineers reading this, imagine trying
to design such a system to work in laboratory conditions. Not too problematic
? Now imagine trying to design one which would work in a packed London street,
with cyclists, pedestrians, motorbikes, pushchairs, and rollerbladers all
over the place, at dusk when it’s raining. Oh by the way, many of the
cars will have cracked, damaged, or dirty licence plates. Forget it.
Sure enough, recently released figures show that only just over half the people
charged with a penalty notice have paid-up. Although a good many of the refuseniks
are simply people who don’t want to pay, many thousands are challenging
the system, claiming that they were not in town when the fat-controller says
they were. Not suprisingly, the company which runs the system, Capita,
have been less than forthcoming with the publication of exact figures on
the level of mis-reads. But they have said that the system has trouble with
zeros and O’s . . . Oh r e a l l y ?
Now, according to Reuters, a national ‘think-tank’ is considering
advising the government to apply a similar scheme country-wide.
Great 1dea guyz, 5hame 1t w0n’t w0rk.
comment: Depending where you look, the scheme has either been :
a fab success http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/press-releases/2004/
or a high tech tarpit http://management.silicon.com/
The strange case of the mystery containers.
Those unruly ‘activists’ at Greenpeace have overstepped the mark again. This time they boarded a ship about to dock in Miami loaded, they claim, with illegal mahogany from Brazil. Under the CITES agreement, the US has laws which forbid the import of illegally harvested mahogany. The Brazilian government also has laws which ban the export of illegally harvested mahogany. An open and shut case then? Well it would be, but the US government says there was no mahogany on board – and Greenpeace, who’d tracked the vessel from South America, says there was.
Now, some fifteen months after the event, the authorities have decided to charge
Greenpeace under obscure legislation which was drafted in the 1800’s.
The law, which has barely seen the light of day for more than a century,
was apparently introduced to prevent the owners of lodging-houses, who were
touting for trade, boarding ships as they neared the port, and generally
making a nuisance of themselves. Call me a nit-picker, but I’m not
really interested in whether the activists, ( who did no damage ), broke,
or didn’t break that particular law – I’m interested in
whether there was any illegal cargo onboard.
I’m also interested as to why the US Government, as opposed to the owners
of the ship, APL Ltd. ( the initials ? ‘American President
Lines’ . . Heh! ) , should be doing any prosecuting . . . Greenpeace
seem to be very concerned about it (http://www.greenpeace.org)
, but personally, I’d be willing to place a small bet that the case gets
dropped. Apart from the fact that, whatever the outcome, PR-wise, the government
will be shooting itself in its lumbering foot, the lawsuit will also undoubtedly
force the authorities to disclose exactly what the ship was carrying, and,
more importantly, who it belonged to.
P.S. Tip for Greenpeace. Next time, why not board the ship outside territorial waters instead of inside ?
Comment: The judge threw out the case - and advised Greenpeace more or less along the Really Magazine idea above !
Your very own Robinson Crusoe experience, + free flights ! ask me how !
OK . . . it’s only at proposal stages at the moment, but the UK’s shadow chancellor Michael (the peepll’ll) Howard has come up with a cracking new scheme to ‘house’ asylum seekers offshore while their application for entry to the UK is reviewed. He has in mind ‘A small’ll ayland somewhere’. When asked where exactly where it might be he replied ‘We haven’t disayded yet’.
But the shadow home secretary, Oliver Letwin, was a little more specific when he recently announced the scheme on Michael’s behalf. He helpfully pinpointed the location of the island by saying it would be – quote - ‘far away’.
The scheme would work like this. Asylum-seeker arrives at UK point of entry, say London Heathrow airport. He/she applies for asylum status at passport control. Seeker is then bundled up with any others and put back on a plane bound, for - the far-away-island. When they arrive there, their ‘processing’ begins. Some weeks, or possibly months later, if unsuccessful, they are flown back to their originating country. If they are successful they are flown back to Heathrow. Pretty straightforward isn’t it ?
There is one tiny problem for anyone wishing to give it a try. The Conservative party will need to get elected first. By the time that happens, Mr. Howard’s island will likely be under 10 mtrs of globally warmed seawater.
( P.S. Just in case Mr. Howard reads this, I think I’ve found the perfect venue for him to consider. It’s about 80Km off the northeast coast of Australia. To be specific -
Lat (DMS) 21° 43' 60S, Long (DMS) 150° 19' 0E
Of course, it’s under control of the Australian government , but they’ve been most helpful in the past by accommodating less than warmly-welcomed individuals from the UK. But best of all, it’s called Howard Island . . . )
not a grain
Following on from yesterday’s entry, I’d like to point out the following . . . If Ahhneld( the Gubernator )‘s PR office press-released the story -‘Ahhneld has admitted that he’s actually got an IQ of 194 !’ - no newspaper would be daft enough to re-print it (except in the form of a joke of course ). But, if the same newspaper receives a release which says ‘ new microchip the size of a rice grain allows children to be tracked by satellite ‘ - they will . . .
You’d have to be v e r y clever to pull the wool over the eyes of the political editor of any major newspaper, or the sports editor, or the pop-music editor . But the science editor ? A doddle.
More or less the same story as below appeared in several UK newspapers a couple of years back, but it later emerged that the story had been fronted by a hoaxer. Even the BBC ran a story on Sunday, 24 March, 2002 Here’s a small snippet . . . ‘The technology necessary to locate a person geographically is not particularly sophisticated. It has been around for years in the chips that are implanted beneath the skin of pets.‘ Er. no, actually it hasn’t.
I’m press-releasing the following stories to all the news agencies.
‘ David Beckam forsakes the pitch for ballet school ’
‘ Pope to beatify Kissinger’
‘ New memory chip based on polysaccharides ’
Any of ‘em stand a chance d’you reckon?
let's play tag
Bulletin-boards, news-sites, and some rather peculiar religious webpages (which keep mentioning ‘Revelations’) have been very keen on floating the story about ‘kid’ tracking using implanted electronic chips. For some reason, they are under the impression that this is a news story. As the saying goes . . . ‘A news story is when somebody, somewhere, doesn’t want the public to know – the rest is advertising’
In fact, the technology for this type of tagging is decades old. The company marketing the devices, whose press-release has been helpfully regurgitated for free all over the planet, says it will cut down on child-trafficking . . . Oh r e a l l y ? I would have thought that anyone sinister enough to engage in this sort of activity will take about a second and a half to find the device and remove it with the aid of a box-cutter.
The company’s site is so half-baked that it variously describes the implant as ‘ the size of a rice grain’ and also ‘the size of a small ballpoint pen’ ( actually, it’s in between the two ) In fact, it’s just a re-packaged radio frequency re-emitter of the type I remember taking to pieces some twenty years back when they were used as goods tags in clothes shops. Just like the shop tags, you need a scanner to read it – up to a range of a couple of metres or so. About as useful as a tattooed barcode.
It does not, as many of the daft tech-blind news sites have stated, ‘allow the child to be tracked via the internet’ The company concerned does, however, manufacture such tags, and, surprise surprise they are roughly the size of a packet of cigarettes and have batteries that need recharging every few hours – just as you’d expect.
Sorry to disillusion anyone, but a permanent, discreet, implanted, battery-free tagging system which would allow remote tracking - doesn’t exist yet. One day in the future it will though, and we can be sure that there will be a thriving black-market in ‘phreaked’ tags which will enable you to walk straight into MegaCorp’s bank vaults, or through checkpoints in 6mtr. high concrete walls which will have been built around entire countries by then.
no song and dance
Good on the Black Eyed Peas. Their single ‘Where is the Love’ is a heartfelt critique of the sorry state of global affairs with lyrics like “where’s the truth y’all?, where’s the love y’all?, there’s something wrong with the world.” Who could argue with that?
They’ve obviously struck a chord with the UK public, at least, because they are still at number one for the fifth week. In a grindingly ironic twist, and of course the BEP’s couldn’t possibly have foreseen it, the lion’s share of the recording rights to their pacifist anthem are now ultimately owned by an arms manufacturer. Their record label, A&M, belongs to Universal, part of the Vivendi group which has just been acquired (80% control) by the industrial colossus ‘GE’.
General Electric ( not to be confused with the UK’s GEC, who are in a similar line of business ) are also chart toppers. They are in the top ten military manufactures in the US. Although the military arm of their business is only small fraction of their entire operation (they make everything from toasters to silicone rubber), it was still generating around $1.8Billion a year in 1996.
It’s not easy to find up to date public domain info on their current products, (where’s the truth y’all?) but they currently manufacture engines for military jets, ships and helicopters, and, in the last decade they have produced 20mm rotary cannons, and components for landmines. They were producing components for nuclear weapons up until 1993.
It will be interesting to see if any of the recording artists who have just been assimilated into the GE roster, like U2, Sting, Elvis Costello, Stevie Wonder, André Previn, Caetano Veloso, and hundreds more, make a song and dance about it. You can check out Universal’s impressive list of artists, which have links to their websites, on
http://new.umusic.com/artists.aspx
why not e-mail your favourite artist and ask them what they think about it?
comment: Update July 2004. There hasn't been a peep from anyone on the subject. Not a word. Nothing. Zilch.
Perhaps Really Magazine has got it all wrong - or perhaps not. Will anyone let us know please ?
What me ? Argue with the pontiff ?
Well ok, I probably would, if I ever met him. I’d start politely though, and ask him if he was aware that, according to current projections, there will be 100Million cases of HIV infection in Africa by 2015 ? If things ever get to that stage, the whole of human society in sub-Saharan Africa will, in effect, collapse.
‘Believe it or don’t’ as a friend of mine used to say, the Vatican is currently campaigning against the use of condoms in Africa. It says that the HI virus can pass straight through the rubber, and that the condoms are giving people a false sense of security - thereby actually *increasing* the infection rate !
Oh r e a l l y ?
Not according to the World Health Organisation. Who say, with the backing of every scientist at their disposal, that condoms manage to prevent around 90% of viral transmissions. The manufactures say the same too. OK, perhaps I haven’t understood some vital segment of the Almighty’s cruelly convoluted jigsaw to which JP has a privileged insight.
Make up your own mind as you watch the UK’s BBC1 ‘Panorama’ programme on Sunday 12th. ( It’s also available on www.bbc.co.uk/panorama after the transmission for anyone who can’t get BBC1. )
Corruption league table
http://www.transparency.org have just published their ‘Corruption league table’ for 2003.
It makes interesting, but not very surprising reading. Finland, apparently, is the least corrupt country. Bangladesh is the most corrupt, and Brazil is about halfway down the list. In some countries corruption is simply a way of life from the most humble worker to the highest official. A friend once told me that he couldn’t even get out of the airport in Lagos, Nigeria, without a bribe to one of the security staff. If you are unlucky enough to get stopped by traffic police in Russia, they will check your documents, and if there is any irregularity you can expect an on-the-spot ‘fine’, in cash of course, which goes straight into the cop’s pocket. ( having said that, they’ve only just passed laws which require motorists to have insurance anyway ! )
It occurred to me that, of course, the government, which pays the cops wages, will be very well aware of what’s going on, and so, will accordingly set their wages lower. In other words, if the traffic-cop-corruption was stamped out, the government would have to put up their wages to compensate. Which would mean that taxes would have to rise to cover the new payments.
In a bizarre and twisted way, this kind of low level corruption becomes, for the man in the street, more or less the same as taxation, only, in a sense, more efficient ( no middleman)
It occurred to me that it would be interesting to try to correlate the Transparency leaguetable with income tax levels in the various countries. In a totally unscientific ad-hoc analysis in which I shamelessly picked the data to match my theory ( just like everyone else does ), it works. So, the least corrupt country, Finland, has very high income tax – up to 48%. Brazil, which is in the middle, has rates of around 25%. And Paraguay ( fourth from bottom of the list ) has income tax of 0%.
There’s something there alright, I can smell it.
Of course, this interesting link breaks down at the top end of the corruption scale, where one individual, in a position of exceptional power can demand exorbitant backhanders to rubber-stamp a project. Or when an entire government can hand-out multi-billion-dollar infrastructure contracts for companies to which the politicians are linked.
Hang on . . . where is Iraq on the list ? Ah, it’s number 113. Anyone want to place a small wager on whether it will go up or down in 2004 ?
what are the chances ?
For some reason, I haven’t been able to shake-off a comedian’s catch-phrase all day.
The comedian in question is Harry Hill (http://www.harry-hill.tv ) and the phrase in question is - ‘what are the chances of that happenin‘ eh? eh? eh?‘
Searching at random to find some relevance in Harry’s pronouncement , I’ve come up with the following newspaper story . . .
Windfarms in Spain are killing around 7,000 birds in a year, so far including 24 eagles, 409 rare vultures, ( and 650 bats ) . . . Presumably they fly into the rotors. Terrible isn’t it ? On the other hand, I couldn’t find any figures for the number of birds killed by toxic fumes from coal / oil / gas fired stations.Or birds which have their reproductive cycles chopped to bits by dioxins from incinerator / generator plants. Or birds which have their DNA scrambled by ionising radiation leaking from nuclear power plants, Or birds that simply fly into hi-tension overhead power lines. Or birds which get an oil-spill bath and die unlogged somewhere in mid ocean. Or birds . . . Oh I’m getting tired of this.
It seems to me that all these press-released spin-hypes from vested-interest .corp should, by law, come with a kind of passport–log which shows their origins, viz. who paid for the research, which companies are involved, which politicians have shares or directorships, in other words – as John Lennon once remarked ‘ all you have to do is find out who stands to benefit’ That way, the tech-blind media might stand a slight chance of being able understand what angle to take on the story. But as Harry says …..
no prize ?
Mssrs. Mansfield and Lauterbur just have been awarded the Nobel prize for medicine for their work on MRI scanning.
Without wanting in any way to detract from the credit due for the two gentlemen’s astonishing and valuable invention, I would like to remind readers that the Ig-Nobel prizes have also recently been announced. ( the link to their site is on the links page ). This years prizes go to various academics who have worked on projects such as – ‘An analysis of the forces required to drag sheep over various surfaces’ – and – ‘Navigation related structural change in the hippocampi of taxi drivers’.
It’s also perhaps a good time to recall the fact the Mr. Nobel accrued his fortune by making explosives. Dynamite to be specific. The son of an arms manufacturer, he always had a keen interest in explosives. Too keen perhaps, the factory which he built to produce his invention suffered major explosions on several occasions killing workers and his own younger brother. He ended up being banned from conducting any more ‘experiments’ in Stockholm, so he set up a workshop on a barge in the middle of a nearby lake.
His invention(s), ( for he also invented several other forms of explosives,) were of critical value to the mining industry. Needless to say though, the main body of enthusiasts for his work were the military. Although he claimed to be a pacifist, in reality Alfred was more than keen to help, inventing smokeless explosives, silent bullets etc etc, and in 1894, bought his own arms manufacturing facility so that he could directly join in the fun.
By the time of his death he had a fortune-making empire of more than ninety factories worldwide manufacturing explosives and ammunition. A myopic-philosophical-type till the end, one of his published dreams was to ‘create an explosive so powerful the warfare would become impossible’
He didn’t manage to achieve his dream, and, since then, several million people have been on the receiving end of machinery powered by his inventions.
Nice guy huh?
P.S. under the ‘Well, that sums it up’ heading . . . Nobel Peace Prize nominee 1938 ? A. Hitler Esq . . .
funny politics
OK, here’s a plug. A pure unalduterated, shameless plug. Buy Michael Moore’s new book ‘Dude, Where's My Country?’. I haven’t seen much of Mr.Moores work, but the bits I have seen are worth their weight in gold bullets.
One filmed piece that springs to mind was when he took a Christmas choir to sing carols in the foyer of a prominent cigarette company’s head office, Philp Morris I think. The twist was that all the members of the choir had had to undergo tracheotomies because they had lost their larynxes to smoke induced cancer, and were singing with the aid of throat vibrators.
This was TV to make your hair stand on end. Full-on, no holds barred, guerilla tragi/comedy.
In the UK, Mr. Moore’s reflection Mark Thomas has pulled off plenty of similarly poignant pieces. Like flying, and filming, 50 Mtrs overhead the US’s unaccountable ‘secret’ Menwith Hill spy/eavesdropping/spacewars station in a hot air balloon. ( The authorities had forgotten to file for an airspace exclusion over the site.)
Or maybe when his team turned up at the Dungeness nuclear power station with Geiger counters and started hunting for ( and found ) ultra-hot nuclear particles alongside the railtrack it uses.
The sad part is that these guys are doing what politicians are supposed to do, viz., try, by any means possible, to make the world a little bit of a better place. When was the last time you saw a politician doing something that made your hair stand on end ? ( other than in anger obv.).
I can only think of two possible explanations as to why this happens. Either
A) The ‘S y s t e m’ is so unbelievably powerful and efficient that it can crush the life–force out of any upstart politician that dares to challenge it.
Or,
B) Nearly all of the politicians only got themselves elected because of near pathological self-aggrandisement, and once they’ve achieved power, they relax, game-over. Either way it’s a joke. The serious work gets done by comedians.
M$ wants to be cool.
It aches to be cool. It so, so, needs, badly to be cool. And it is, according to the M$ suits, who have a devised a new slogan ‘From geek to sleek’ , Furthermore, its new ‘Media Center’ software is going to provide us with us a ‘New era in computing’.
For some reason, I can’t get out of my mind a centuries–old Monty Python sketch which used the phrase ‘Mate, this bird wouldn’t va-voom if you put four million volts through it’
Just to put things into perspective, at the press launch a few days back in San Francisco, the product ‘slide-show’ locked-up with an ‘unexpected application error’ oh r e a l l y ? well, well.
The visionaries at M$ think that it would be ‘cool’ if you could rewind streamed audio, and ‘cool’ if you could play computer games using your TV remote as a console.
Personally, I think it would be ‘cool’ if my file system didn’t get confused between files that end with a number – so that it lists files thus . . . 17, 18, 19, 2, 20, 21 etc Thinking back, this mind-achingly dumb ‘feature‘ has been a part of the operating system since - well since forever. I think it would be ‘cool’ if the operating system could write a large file to a disk, without getting to the end before it comes up with the message ‘insufficient disk space’.
I could go on and on and on, but I frankly can’t be bothered, and I’m sure your eyes would glaze over ( if they haven’t already ) My point is that the operating system, which is now decades old, can’t professionally handle even the most basic functions. Functions that a would get a year-one computer-tech student failed from the course if he/she couldn’t write the code to control them.
Here’s a tip for M$. First, construct an unfeasibly large cack-filled house of cards on some quicksands somewhere. Then hire a PR firm to convince the public it’s ‘cool’. If they can – hire them.
Whoops no wmd’s.
What’s the funniest PR balls-up so far in this pathetic story? Perhaps the ‘Coalition finds mobile bio-lab trucks’ ?
It was a few months back now, but the photos of the trucks were screened worldwide, BBC, CNN, D-W, the works. Global coverage guaranteed. Scary stuff. And, indeed, there was a small group of people in the UK who physically winced when they saw those pics. That’s because they recognised them. In fact they new the trucks inside out – they’d built them.
They were made by Marconi, the troubled U.K. based company which started out supplying valve radios to Mr. and Mrs. Bloggs, and ended up making weapons guidance systems and other military gubbins for anyone with the cash. Well, not e v e r y o n e obviously; but they were evidently contented to allow a certain S. Hussein Esq. to buy them.
The ominous ‘fermentation vessels’ which they carried, were, in fact, hydrogen tanks, for the trucks were designed as mobile balloon-filling stations. Fill the balloon with hydrogen, attach a camera, send it up, have a look round. Not exactly high-tech, in fact the idea was being used as far back as the American civil war.
The curious aspect of this farce is that the trucks will almost certainly have had a manufacturer’s nameplate proudly attached. One that said something along the lines of ‘Made in the U.K. from the finest aluminium and canvas by Marconi Industries’ along with serial numbers etc etc. And yet, none of the ‘crack inspection team’ who investigated the trucks said “er , hold on a minute guys, better have a look at this before we file the story about the fermenters . . . “ Doh!
new pipes for old ?
I know very little about politics, and frankly, that’s how things will stay. Mainly because delving into the subject usually makes me feel ‘sik to my stomik’. However, every now and again I stumble over something . . .
Ever heard of the ‘Haifa Project’? Me neither until a few days ago. It’s a ‘memo of understanding’ viz. a legally binding document, between the US and Israel. It was initially negotiated by a Dr. Kissinger way back in 1975 ( Remember him? He was the one who received the Nobel Peace Prize at the same time he was secretly furthering the US’s illegal carpet–bombing of Cambodia ) Since then, the agreement has been renewed every five years. It’s a promise by the US to maintain an oil supply for Israel – no matter what. This includes shipping oil by military means if necessary.
Astonishingly, it also obliges the US to maintain a permanent stockpile of oil at all times, specifically earmarked for Israel, worth some billions of dollars. Well, as I mentioned, I’m fairly ignorant on global politics, but is there any other country in the world that has such an agreement to maintain an oil supply for another ?
That’s one hell of a commitment for the US – but luck is at hand ! There used to be an oil pipeline running from the Iraqi oilfields directly to Israel, and it looks as though the powers which are currently administering Iraq – yes exactly - may just be willing to allow the pipeline to be rebuilt ! That would give Israel a permanent and reliable source of oil ( they have none of their own ) - and also let the US off the hook. How convenient !
By a strange twist of fate, the current ‘civilian administrator’ of Iraq used to be M.D. of ‘Kissinger Associates’ – yes that Kissinger. The world of global power politics is full of coincidences isn’t it ? I do hope I haven’t made any errors in this item, if I have, I’m sure someone will let me know.
does it float or sink ?
I have to admit a failure to keep up to speed with the Kyoto Protocol. I was under the impression that the agreement, which was signed in 1997 by some 100 countries, was, in fact, operational.
Silly me.
It was ‘signed’ , but not ‘ratified’ - which means, that up to now - it has absolutely no effect. The US, the world’s largest pollution source, has now stated that it won’t be ratifying the agreement after all. But still, the other countries could go ahead and ratify it . . . and it could get implemented without the US.
Unfortunately, now Russia’s Mr Putin said in an address yesterday that his country ‘needs more time to consider the implications’ before it will ratify. More time ? It’s been under discussion for about ten years now – how long do they want ?
The curious aspect about Russia’s stance is that, in comparison to some other countries, it’s actually a very meagre polluter - way below the targets set by the Protocol. So, it’s in a position to ‘sell’ its excess pollution quota to other countries if it wishes to. There is already a large market in Europe selling these quotas, much like commodities on the stock market. Russia could raise billions of Euros or Dollars in hard currency selling it’s quotas – and yet it’s not.
One of the reasons why Russia is in such a good position is that it has vast areas of forest which act as so-called ‘carbon sinks’. As every schoolchild knows, vegetation consumes CO2 and gives out oxygen. Plants more or less build themselves out of this carbon they take up. ( If you burn a piece of wood, it’s immediately obvious how much carbon is tied up in it.) Pretty straightforward – except that - when a tree dies, all the carbon gets returned to the environment again. It’s so simplistic and obvious, but I’ve only just worked it out . . . In other words, if a mature forest remains the same size, the nett effect it will have on CO2 absorption – is zero.
A bit like the capitalist system itself, these ‘carbon sinks’ only work if they are in a state of perpetual growth – clearly impossible in the long term. In any case, the areas of forest in most countries are decreasing not increasing.
The burning wood seems to have created a smokescreen - behind which we can just make out the shadowy figures of competing scientists and ill-informed politicians. The words ‘monkey’ and ‘business’ spring to mind.
see Carbon Sinks meme_10.htm
Update Apr 2004
Althought he treaty is still in limbo, EU countries have now agreed to be bound by it anyway.
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